Getty Foundation Awards $1.5 Million to Black Visual Arts Archives
203Aug. 21, 2025
The Getty Foundationhas presented seven US organizations with a total of $1.5 million in grants as part of its ongoing Black Visual Arts Archives initiative, established in 2022. This round of recipients encompasses the Amistad Research Center, New Orleans; California State University Los Angeles; Clark Atlanta University; Emory University, Atlanta; Lincoln University, Pennsylvania; the Smithsonian’s Anacostia Community Museum, Washington, DC; and Visual AIDS, New York. Anacostia is the only repeat grantee of the bunch, having received money alongside the Chicago Public Library, Nashville’s Fisk University, the New York Public Library, and Philadelphia’s Temple University during the foundation’s first round of funding, which took place while the program was in its pilot phase and totaled $1.1 million.
The Getty Foundation, which accepts grant application inquiries regarding the initiative on an ongoing basis, has partnered with professional archivist and consultant Dominique Luster, a specialist in Black archives, to help grantees launch projects. The goal of the multi-year program is to expand access to archival collections, especially those containing information about work created by Black artists. Much of this material has been historically difficult to research, as records are frequently dispersed, not readily findable, or not yet processed. To date, grantees have used funds provided by the initiative to digitize archival records, process negatives, and create finding aids. Several organizations have put some of the money to use in unique ways, with Temple University creating a virtual reality game that lets players experience what it’s like to conduct archival research while at the same time learning about historical exhibitions hosted by what was once Philadelphia’s lone Black-owned art gallery; and the NYPL’s Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture publishing a digital zine in honor of its centennial.
“We need a fuller understanding of the influence of Black artists, architects, and cultural institutions to tell a more complete history of American art and culture, and we can work towards achieving this by investing in Black archives,” said Miguel de Baca, senior program officer at the Getty Foundation, in a statement. “Black Visual Arts Archives delivers critical support to make these archives and the stories of creativity, resiliency, and community they hold more accessible to researchers and the general public.”